Chile: the cartographers dilemma

Chile can at times be a difficult country to get your orientation in thanks to the fact that all the maps of any useful detail in the guidbooks are split over several disconnetced pages, making locations of and distances between places difficult to asses. As such, when I decided to bee line straight from Arequipa to Santiago a few enquiries at the bus station quickly made it clear that a stopover was going to be needed unless I wanted close to 40 hours straight in the bus (though during one of those stops I did meet a girl who´d made her way from Ecuador to middle Chile, about a 3 day journey!).

So after a brief stop in Arica where I could finally set eyes on the ocean again and wave to my homeland from the other side of the Pacific, the next day I boarded my longest bus ride yet. My journey took me 23 hours south to La Serena, with nothing in between but mile after mile of endless desert-The Atacama desert to be precise-more famous as the driest place on earth. Yep, out here there is literally nothing but dirt, rocks and barren mountains covering about 1000km. Though spectacular in its own way, I gotta say brown does get a little bit dull after a while! By the time I got to La Serena even the modest colourings of the coastal desert (read cacti) took on an exaggerated beauty. However, travelling inland the next day there was nothing exaggerated about the beauty of the flowers to be found blooming in yet another tract of desert. A multitude of vibrant colourings and a wonderful diversity of shapes and sizes glowed as the sun set over orange sands and cacti fell into silhouette against the mountains.

It was a fitting floral end to what had mostly been a fauna oriented day, having taken a trip to the Damas Islands to see some of Chile´s marine life, and in particular the endangered Humboldt Penguins. Unfortunately the crystal clear blue waters and white sand beaches from the pictures didn´t have quite the same idyllic feel in reality as grey storm clouds threatened and winds chilled me to the core. But being joined by a pod of dolphins dipping and diving around the boat (and even jumping into the air to wave goodbye!) made it all worthwhile. Seeing seals, penguins, cormorants, boobies (the avian variety!), and even an otter was fine compensation for the bleak weather.

Unfortunately I was fast becoming aware that my travelling time was running out, and still with much to see in the rest of Chile I turned to yet another map page in my LP to determine my next destination in the thin country and again hit the bus station...next stop? Valparaiso, the shabby chic photographers dream...